... In two experiments conducted with Ayrshire dairy cows in 1974 and 1975 on swards of S23 perennial ryegrass, four systems of continuous grazing were investigated. The leys received 345 and 370 kg ha-¹ fertilizer nitrogen in 1974 and 1975 respectively and were stocked at the rate of five cows per ha. In 1974, a comparison was made between two systems which either integrated silage making with, or se ...

... This study aims to evaluate the performance of two mainstream downscaling techniques: statistical and dynamical downscaling and to compare the differences in their projection of future climate change and the resultant impact on wheat crop yields for three locations across New South Wales, Australia. Bureau of Meteorology statistically- and CSIRO dynamically-downscaled climate, derived or driven by ...

... Farm-level greenhouse gas (GHG) footprinting tools produce markedly different results from common input datasets. These tools are typically empirical, broad scope models which are valuable for their ability to account for a range of on-farm GHG sources using non-specialist data. Many of these tools are publicly available, and are employed by users from a range of backgrounds to provide enterprise- ...

... The aim of this study was to determine the performance of lambs of a Segureña local breed for growth, carcass traits and tissue composition when raised either in an extensive or an intensive production system to produce carcasses of ~11 kg. In the extensive system lambs (n = 21) were raised on pasture with salt-tolerant forages (bermudagrass hybrid and ryegrass Westerwold) and were unweaned. In th ...

... Soil is a non-renewable natural resource, considered as the basis for food production. Changes in soil properties may indicate potentially beneficial or degradative effects of a given management practice, so it is important to select the most sensitive soil properties to act as quality indicators. This research evaluated different approaches to selecting soil quality indicators in the construction ...

... Alfalfa production in the Western United States requires large quantities of phosphorus (P) fertilizer. In 1998, phosphoric acid (PA) became available as a fertilizer source. Phosphoric acid was more expensive per kg of P than other fertilizers, but was promoted on the basis of convenience of application when tank mixed with other chemicals, and superior agronomic performance (higher yield per kg ...

... Infestations of Italian ryegrass are problematic in both conventional and organic wheat production systems. The development of wheat cultivars with superior competitive ability against Italian ryegrass could play a role in maintaining acceptable yields and suppressing weed populations. Research was conducted in North Carolina to identify indirect methods of selection for Italian ryegrass suppressi ...

... The emphasis plant breeders place on improving seasonal dry‐matter (DM) yield of pasture plants may increase farm profitability through greater supply of DM for livestock in critical seasons. Economic values (EV) for traits can be used to guide plant breeders when selecting ‘top’ pasture plants. Two methods of calculating economic value (EV) for seasonal DM traits were evaluated. These were based ...

... Research on biofuel production pathways from algae continues because among other potential advantages they avoid key consequential effects of terrestrial oil crops, such as competition for cropland. However, the economics, energetic balance, and climate change emissions from algal biofuels pathways do not always show great potential, due in part to high fertilizer demand. Nutrient recycling from a ...

... The economic performance of the current inshore rock bream aquaculture industry conducted in Yeosu, Korea was compared with a pilot commercial scale offshore aquaculture farm in Jeju, Korea. Data was collected from 12 inshore farms and two production cycles of the offshore farm for use in Monte Carlo simulations run over a ten year time horizon. Net present value was compared for the inshore farms ...

... The optimal design of biofuels production systems is a key component in the analysis of the environmental and economic performance of new sustainable transport systems. In this paper a general mixed integer linear programming modelling framework is developed to assess the design and planning of a multi-period and multi-echelon bioethanol upstream supply chain under market uncertainty. The optimisa ...

... The statistical methods used in the genetic evaluations are a key component of the process and can be best compared by using simulated data. The latter is especially true in grazing beef cattle production systems, where the number of proven bulls with highly reliable estimated breeding values is limited to allow for a trustworthy validation of genomic predictions. Therefore, we simulated data for ...

... Existing approaches to enhance sustainability of livestock production systems focus on the level of sustainability indicators. Maintaining the level of sustainability in the face of perturbations, which is robustness of sustainability, is relatively unexplored. Perturbations can be classed as noise (common in a specific system environment), shock (uncommon, either in occurrence, magnitude or durat ...

... Hydropower plants are an important source of renewable energy. In the near future, high-head storage hydropower plants will gain further importance as a key element of large-scale electricity production systems. However, these power plants can cause hydropeaking which is characterized by intense unnatural discharge fluctuations in downstream river reaches. Consequences on environmental conditions ...

... A conceptual framework for climate change assessments of international market systems that involve long-term investments is proposed. The framework is a hybrid of dynamic and static modeling. Dynamic modeling is used for those system components for which temporally continuous modeling is possible, while fixed time slices are used for other system components where it can be assumed that underlying ...

... In recent years, numerous efforts have been made to include water-related issues in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. This study provides an overview of existing methods that address green water use in LCA. In this overview, we analyse the main features of existing LCA methods used to examine changes in long-term blue water availability caused by variations in green water flows, particularl ...

... Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum, the causal agent of Xanthomonas wilt of banana (XW), does not infect or cause symptom development in all physically attached shoots in an infected mat. Incomplete/partial systemicity and latent infections often occur. The single diseased stem removal (SDSR, the removal of only symptomatic plants) technique depends on these observations. The SDSR technique, as ...

... A copper(ii)-based MOF film (MOF-199/Ni) prepared by electrodeposition shows exceptionally high photocatalytic hydrogen production rates of 8000 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ (based on the mass of MOF-199) and 24 400 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ with Pt as the co-catalyst and eosin Y as the photosensitizer. The activity is one of the highest among all the reported MOF-based hydrogen production systems. With nickel foam as a subst ...